By Adekunle Adekoya

FINALLY, the D-Day is here. Tomorrow, the elections will hold to elect the next President and members of the National Assembly — the Senate and the House of Representatives. According to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, 1,101 candidates are vying for 109 senatorial seats while 3,122 candidates are contesting for House of Representatives seats. There are about 18 contestants eyeing the Office of the President.

That is a huge number. But given our population and diversity — we’re more than 200 million, with about 400 ethnic and linguistic groups, maybe that’s not too much. But given the number of people that usually emerge to contest to become president or prime minister in countries with similar demographics, it’s a lot. It also reminds me, sardonically however, of the novel, Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson. These lines come to mind: 

“Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest—

…Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!

Drink and the devil had done for the rest—

…Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!

18 compatriots struggling to become our next president, with four of them standing out — Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Mr. Peter Obi, and Dr. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso. 

Another lyric in Treasure Island, near its end:

But one man of her crew alive,

What put to sea with seventy-five.

Just one of them will win the polls, and will eventually be sworn-in as president.

They have all campaigned hard, traversing the length and breadth of the country in motor vehicles, airplanes, shouting themselves hoarse about what they have in store for us, and how they can improve our pursuit of happiness. They have all been talking basically about the things my father and his age mates must have talked about at independence — better education, improved electric power supply, education, roads, etc.

These things have largely remained, in terms of quality if not quantity, at First Republic levels. In fact, one might go out on a limb to say that Nigeria was better 40, 50 years ago than now. Were we making progress? Trending in the last few weeks on many WhatsApp chat groups was an advertisement in a now defunct newspaper, placed by the National Party of Nigeria, NPN, during the Second Republic.

The advertisement urged Nigerians to vote for the party’s presidential candidate, Alhaji Shehu Shagari, with the party promising that Shagari, if elected, will deliver qualitative education, accessible and cheap healthcare, halting rural-urban migration, and others.

That was 40 years ago. Suffice to say that a few months after that advertisement was published, Nigeria went to the polls on August 9, 1983, and Alhaji Shehu Shagari was returned elected. Three months after swearing-in, on December 31, 1983, there was a military coup d’etat, and Major-General Muhammadu Buhari emerged Head of State. Another military interregnum that was to last till 1999 had begun. Between then and now, the promises made to Nigerians by the NPN had remained largely unfulfilled. The power elite has failed Nigeria, such that 24 years after return to civil rule in 1999, we are still battling with the same issues that my late father and his peers battled with — epileptic power supply, a comatose healthcare system, parlous infrastructure, and a decayed educational system.

With the benefit of hindsight, it can now be seen that Nigeria’s best chances at rapid development may have been blown away. I am convinced that the nation did not make good use of the years the military was in power. Our country does not compare and cannot compete with many other Third World nations in the Middle East, South-East Asia, and Latin America who were under dictatorships like Nigeria.

More disappointing has been the dismal performance of the power elite since 1999. We are here still battling, like a collection of primitive tribes, with poor electricity generation and distribution, an unfriendly transportation system, an unreliable healthcare system, and other evils of underdevelopment that are collaborating to deepen poverty, ignorance and disease. It is not where Nigeria should be in the 21st century. 

As we go out to elect new leaders tomorrow, we must not lose sight of the fact that the power elite in Nigeria has remained a perpetual failure that has refused to actualise the promise of God for Nigeria. Blessed with abundant human and material resources and relatively immune from natural disasters that wreak havoc in other parts of the world, there is no reason Nigeria should not be the wealthiest country in the world, with Nigerians enjoying the highest standard of living, globally. It goes back again to the type of leaders we will elect tomorrow. I have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that the poverty ravaging our land will be weaponised against voters such that wise choices might be sacrificed for immediate gratification. Cry, my beloved Nigeria!